叮

dīng
verb #5,676

Meanings

  1. 1 to sting
  2. 2 to bite (of insects)
  3. 3 to urge repeatedly
  4. 4 ding

Examples

HSK 3
Māma dīng le wǒ hǎojǐ biàn yào xiǎoxīn.
Mom urged me several times to be careful.
HSK 7-9
Wǒ bèi wénzi dīng le yī kǒu.
I got bitten by a mosquito.

Tips

usage
叮 for insect bites/stings. 叮嘱 means to urge or remind repeatedly. Also used as onomatopoeia for a 'ding' sound.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Mouth radical on the left - the indexing radical. It supplies meaning: 叮 covers both mouth-actions (urging, exhorting in 叮嘱) and sharp little sounds/bites (a mosquito's high whine, the 'ding' of a bell). Same radical heads 听, 叫, 啊 and the rest of the speech/sound family.
phonetic
丁 dīng
nail; firm
丁 (dīng) supplies the sound exactly, no tone shift. It pictures a nail head-on. Beside being purely sonic here, the nail-image gives a faint mnemonic flavor - both a mosquito's 'sting' and a high-pitched 'ding!' bell-tone are little nail-sharp events. Same phonetic in 钉, 顶, 订, 盯.

Stroke Order

叮 dīng